


Architectural Disorder

by diopan



Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 22:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diopan/pseuds/diopan
Summary: Fudou’s stepping out of the bar when Sakuma’s coming in.“Going anywhere?”This is in line with what he does, like stand on his tiptoes every time they take a picture together so he can later say 'I’m taller, you’re lying about your height.' He wanted to be late.





	Architectural Disorder

**Author's Note:**

> for june

yesterdays flash and reflect,  
ready to bolt, ready to empty out.

 

 

 

 

 

  
Fudou’s stepping out of the bar when Sakuma’s coming in.  
“Going anywhere?”  
This is in line with what he does, like stand on his tiptoes every time they take a picture together so he can later say 'I’m taller, you’re lying about your height.' He wanted to be late. Later than Sakuma. But Sakuma’s won this round.  
“You took how many walks around the block to beat me?”  
“Please,” Sakuma rolls his eyes. He took three.

The bar is crowded and they find a pocket in one of the corners, standing up next to a tall and thin wooden table. As it's customary, Fudou places his hand on the small of Sakuma's back and Sakuma leans into the touch just so, denies even to himself that he's relishing the warmth.

Sakuma places his pack of cigarettes on the table and Fudou takes one almost in the same movement.  
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” he says, his fingers brushing intently against Sakuma’s protective hold on his lighter. “It’s for your own good,” he tells him when Sakuma’s about to protest.  
A tower of a man behind them turns around and glares at Fudou–he glares back—then points at the big No Smoking sign above their heads. The whole thing is worth it, Sakuma’s grin seems to say, just for the look on Fudou’s face, unimpressed yet apologetic.  
“Okay,” he puts out the cigarette on the sole of his shoe. He concedes the score. “What’ll you have?”  
“Blue Lagoon,” Sakuma looks away, at the crowd, moments after Fudou’s already started his way to the bar. His defense is flawless as usual, but Fudou knows his weak points.  
When he turns towards him, from the bar, he finds Sakuma staring back, with his eye that seems to cut right through him. He knows Fudou’s weaknesses too.

 

Years ago, Fudou saw his covered eye up close. It was right before their match against Raimon, maybe the first or twentieth time he thought Sakuma was beautiful, when all his resentment and regret spilled out of his mouth as he watched Kidou’s back walking away from him in his mind. Fudou had been excited; anxious with anticipation, perhaps dread. Here was the most beautiful being he’d ever seen consumed to the bone with the desire to best his closest friend, to win at all costs. It was fitting that he'd found Sakuma lying helplessly in a hospital bed.

 

The feeling is almost the same now. The ache to find out what Sakuma’s lips would feel like, what his dark smooth skin would taste like, look like against his own, still stirs at the bottom of his stomach.

 

Sakuma takes the glass by the stem. His fingers too pointedly graze Fudou’s, eye on his, and he takes his time to map out the callouses he knows are there. He’s held that hand before, almost always on accident, but its reliefs and lines he’s committed to memory. Sometimes he feels Fudou's long finger ghosting over his open palm, writing words Sakuma chances Fudou can't even spell.

Before taking a sip of his drink he moves his hair away from his face, catches Fudou’s hand out the corner of his eye going to stroke some loose strands, twining them around his finger before letting go.  
“It’s gotten long.”  
“So has yours,” he tells Fudou but doesn’t reciprocate the action.  
He gulps back the memory of Fudou tugging viciously at his hair during one of their fights when they both played Inazuma Japan, washes it down with sweet vodka. He’d made fun of his head tattoo then, wondered sardonically where it had gone off to now that he was pretending to be on their side. He didn’t trust him then. Maybe he still doesn’t.

“So, you gonna tell me why you wanted to meet or what?”

 

 

They both gawk with embarrassment at the awkward dances of their teenage years. The push and pull and never getting close enough except for fights or tumbling over each other during matches and practice; bickering with their fists clenched tight or laughing at some joke in the locker room before being painfully aware they’ve gotten too close and walking away with muted frustration that hums the tune of something missing they haven’t put into words. Or actions. 'Remember when we...,' their reminiscences start, and they laugh it off as if things were different now. As if they weren’t still circling each other like alley cats that never pounce.

 

Fudou fears he’d be too delicate in his embrace. He’d be careful like he’s never been with anything before. He fears that when it’s over, Sakuma would walk away erasing all evidence of it ever happening, and there’d be nothing left but the pictures Fudou snuck in secret: Sakuma sleeping at his side, Sakuma having breakfast, his hair mussed, Sakuma walking away. He tells himself he took those to show off and it's only half a lie. When did he become this sentimental?  
Sakuma fears the scratch would only leave wounds and not erase any of the itch. And he fears Fudou might be right, that he’ll leave and no record of them—of Fudou’s tenderness, of Sakuma’s utter trust and openness—will survive them after he walks away knowing Fudou's sneaking one last picture.

 

 

Fudou hides his question ('You gonna tell me why you wanted to meet?') behind his tall glass of Fernet and Coke.  
“S'been, what, two months? Surely ya can go longer without it, right?”  
Sakuma makes a face.  
“Why did you come?”  
“Had nothing better to do,” Fudou replies, too quickly. He curses himself with a satisfied smile.  
“Incapable of being honest, are we?”  
Fudou puts down the glass and pokes his right index finger in Sakuma’s chest, just once, then rests the tips of all his fingers there, with just a tad of pressure.  
“So are you,” he says, with a sly smile that grows wider when Sakuma takes his hand, away from his chest, but doesn’t let go of it.  
“I let go of that long ago.”  
“And the resentment?”  
“And more.”  
Fudou doesn’t have to be smart to guess at what Sakuma’s talking about and he’s tempted to press the issue, ask about Kidou, but he keeps his mouth shut. He entwines their fingers, his own cold from holding the glass.

 

It plays out like this, with slight variations, in their heads. They're both good at strategy, after all, anticipating their opponents’ movements.

Sakuma takes the first step. Fudou lets him. Their hands rest, laced together, at their side, and Fudou runs his left one through Sakuma’s hair. Their faces are so close Sakuma can taste the cola bubbles in Fudou's breath. Fudou follows him out the bar, trailing just behind, his hand extended, still connected. When the cold air outside cuts through their warm necks, Fudou kisses Sakuma's and though he protests, he doesn't pull away with much strength. His skin tastes just how he's imagined it would all these years and can't help himself from digging his teeth in Sakuma's soft flesh above the shoulder. They don't kiss—open mouth and wet and warm and delicate—until they're in Sakuma's apartment and the door is locked behind them, Fudou's leg between Sakuma's thigh, Sakuma's hands tugging at his ponytail, as they stand by the threshold and Fudou roughly whispers a question on Genda's whereabouts and Sakuma breathlessly explains he won't be back for the night. Sakuma moves above him in bed and his hair spills down, drawing a curtain that keeps them from view in the almost pitch black room. His fingers on Fudou's hips grasp so hard there's no way he won't find bruising the next morning. He can feel a bruise forming on the inside of his thigh under the wetness of their combined sweat. When he kisses Fudou's neck he can feel the way he swallows his breath and his moans and his voice and he has half a mind to smirk, he's won again. The next morning, Fudou's gone, taking with him more pictures of Sakuma's form, and the quiet victory of having beat Sakuma at leaving him behind, of having beat heartbreak to the punch.

 

 

 

 

  
Maybe in another world.

 

 

 

 

 

Neither can be sure who lets go first, but both their hands go back to the drinks, on the wooden table in the bar, and they let out a laugh like whatever was on their mind was just one big joke that isn't boring holes into their insides and twisting their organs with want and frustration and relief. Fudou lights another cigarette and Sakuma lights one off his, both holding them in their mouths. The tower of a man comes back, more menacing this time, and they laugh loudly as they spill out of the bar without paying for their drinks and find a small, almost empty soba stand where they nurse a bottle of sake and pretend that's the only thing between them.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a cmmission for june  
> if u like this or any of my fics pls take a look at my listography [here](https://listography.com/diopan)


End file.
